The sketch of Jabish N.M. Hurd's Store was found
on an account in the Samuel S. Forman Papers at Lorenzo State Historic
Site, Cazenovia, NY (SF-NN-2-18). The account
is between the Holland Land Company's Cazenovia Store, operated by Samuel
Forman, and "the Camillus Store" which may have also been one of their
off-shoot enterprises. The account is dated June 14, 1819, but the
sketch was made before that date as the account is written over it.

Jabish N.M. Hurd, born about 1778, seems to
have come been in Utica where he, Josiah Masters, and Merritt Clark had
been in partnership in a general merchandise store. In 1802 Clark
dropped from the partnership, and Hurd & Masters went off to open a
store in Cazenovia. Masters seems to have continued management of
the store in Utica while Hurd came into the hills of Cazenovia to run the
store (Whitestown Gazette 2/22/1802).
Hurd also served as Cazenovia's second Post Master beginning in 1803, and
later served as the Town Clerk, County Coroner, County Clerk, Lieutenant
Colonel in the Cazenovia Militia, and most impressive of all as a Brigadier
General in the War of 1812. His business connections were far
and wide and besides the large chunks of land he owned in the village he
also operated an ashery, was associated with a woolen mill, and had other
manufacturing interests. An 1809 map of the Madison County Jail Limits
in the Village of Cazenovia (then the County seat) shows that Hurd's store
was located on the north side of Albany Street at the west side of the
Public Square, no w#21 Albany Street (map at the Madison
County Historical Society). His house appears to have been
on or near the same property as the store, at the corner of the Public
Square but because of his large property holdings and lack of positive
evidence this cannot be said for certain.

Although the community was still quite young when Hurd came to town,
all but three of the twenty families on the Holland Land Company census
of that year lived in small frame houses (Village and Out Lots).
The village also had by that time a saw and grist mill, other small manufactories,
a post office, and several other general merchants. The primary merchant
at the time was Samuel S. Forman in the Holland land Co. store which stood
where the Presbyterian Church is today and later nearly across the street
from Hurd's store, at #24-26 Albany Street.

Masters & Hurd purchased several parcels of land fronting along
Albany Street and extending from the Public Square westward to what is
now Hurd Street (Chenango County Deed C:176).
By 1804 Masters & Hurd had purchased nearly all of the land that lies
between present Albany, Sullivan, Forman, and Green Streets, excepting
the house lots fronting on Albany Street (5,7,9 Albany St., now Brae Lock,
Gothic Cottage, and David O'Hara's office) (Chenango Deeds
D:330, F:45, and G:347). These lots were laid out as building
lots by local surveyor Elisha Johnson in 1804 (map at Lorenzo)
but sale of the lots was slow because of a question about the title between
the former partnership with Masters and for many years after the land was
kept as a large meadow. In 1810 Hurd Street was opened through the
large property (The Pilot 4/__/1810).
Other improvements were made at this time to a shallow stream which ran
through the property and it was diverted, the land filled, and a corduroy
causeway built over the wet area. Hurd Street was originally called
"Church Street" because the Presbyterian Church (built 1804 to 1806) originally
stood at the head of of the street (in front of the present Middle School).
From the 1830s to the early 1850s, after the church had been moved to its
present location (1828), the street was called Green Street as it led to
the Village Green (the present Green Street was not opened by then).
The present name was given in honor of Jabish N.M. Hurd in 1852 (The
Cazenovia Gazette 11/4/1852).

The store seems to have been somewhat successful at first and Masters
& Hurd continued together until August 1808 after which time Hurd continued
alone, selling dry goods, yarn, cotton, etc. (The Pilot,
8/10/1808, 8/__/1811, 8/__/1815). As Post Master, Hurd had
charge of the very important (political and community) office which was
located in the store, but in 1819 it was moved to a brick building that
stood at the northeast corner of the Public Square, where the wooden half
of the Merchant's bank now stands.

Hurd seems to have had somewhat of a stormy relationship with some people
in high and influential places, creditors and politicians alike.
The reasons for his troubles are not entirely clear and were shrouded with
mystery at the time and then more by the passing of the ages. In
1819 Hurd ran into financial difficulties with creditors in Albany and
New York City and by the end of the year his lands were put up for sale.
The store must have been closed at this time, thus the wording of the note
posted upon the door of the store in the sketch: "goods are moved
to Carpenter's store mysteriously." The last word, "mysteriously."
hints that things were not going Hurd's way. Jabez Abell wrote in
1941 that Hurd was, like many of his fellow merchants, a victim of the
lifting of the embargo after the War of 1812. He held on much longer
than some, being over stocked with cheap British goods that quickly became
unsalable, but finally collapsed. Abel makes reference to Hurd's
store accounts and it seems that they still existed in the 1940s, but their
whereabouts today is unknown.

Hurd's creditors included several prominent Albany and New York City
merchants who were not about to let him off easy. They foreclosed
on his properties in October 1819 (Madison County Deed Q:16)
and a month later the local paper advertised that his property, including
the store property, house lots, a mill lot north of the village, an ashery
near the east bridge, and a share in a brick building on the northeast
corner of the square (which housed the village Post office) was to be sold
at auction (The Pilot 11/__/1819). Hurd
managed to retain some of these parcels, but despite the closing of his
store and the loss of some of his real estate, his troubles were not over.

Hurd remained as Post Master until the first of January, 1822, when
he was replaced by fellow merchant, Jesse Kilborn. Kilborn was also
a Federalist, but Hurd was swept away like hundreds of other post masters
during this time of nation-wide political struggles. Despite adamant
arguments from nearly all the other merchants and prominent men of the
village, Kilborn was in the spot to stay (The Pilot
1/__/1822). Hurd seems to have remained in Cazenovia for a
few more years and sold the last of his land here in 1827. At that
time he still retained the store lot (where he had his house) which was
described as one acre suitable for "family or business," with 5 acres adjoining,
the distillery lot and stone distillery across Albany Street (now along
Willow Place), and one half of a two story office building on the Public
Square (with 2 rooms on each floor) (The Republican Monitor
8/__/1827). Whether Hurd had full ownership of these properties
is not likely as his house lot is later sold by the same creditors that
were after him in 1819.

I have not found a biography of Hurd, but it appears that he was born
about 1778 and would have been a young man of 24 years when he settled
in Cazenovia. Some information is known about his family, but it
seems that, like his business ventures, his personal and family life was
also difficult. His first wife, Nancy, died at Huntington CT, February
8, 1809, at the age of 29 years, his second wife, Laura, daughter of Thomas
Williams of Cazenovia, died April 22, 1817, at the age of 22 years.
Laura Williams Hurd is buried in Cazenovia Village's Evergreen Cemetery.
His third wife, also named Laura, lived with him in later years.
Jabish N.M. Hurd, long a prominent figure in Cazenovia, left the village
about 1827 and removed to Albany. He is listed in the Albany city
directories for many years and became a prominent citizen of that city.
He died there in February of 1855 at the age of 77 years.

In 1828 the Albany Street lot, where Hurd's store, and presumably house,
had been located, were purchased from Hurd's New York City creditors by
Augustus W. Smith, a math professor who soon became the principal of the
Oneida Conference Seminary, and went on to later in 1851 became the principal
of a Wesleyan University in Middletown Connecticut (Madison
County Deed Z:747). Smith lived here for a short time only
and about 1831 the house and lot were purchased by Dr. Alvin Foord, who
had come to Cazenovia about 1828. Foord was a village physician and
patent medicine king who sold his famous "Pectoral Syrup," "Tonic Cordial,"
and "Universal Pills" far and wide across the country in the 1840s, 1850s,
and 1860s. Foord lived at this location until 1866 when he sold it
to George S. Ledyard, who built the present house at #19 Albany Street.
In 1867 Foord built what is known as the "Wendell House" next to the Presbyterian
Church at #21 Albany Street. The 1852
map of the village shows clearly the extent of the Foord house property
which is little changed since the days that Hurd occupied it.

THE SKETCH

THE PORTRAIT of Jabish N.M. Hurd
(from the Collection of the Cazenovia Public Library)